Chinese Students Create Electricity From A Spoonful Of Sugar

Welcome to the era of technology and science where the word impossible has no power. We have come a long way and there’s still a long way to go, however, with every passing hour it seems we are breaking new barriers and transforming dreams into reality. The concept of electricity isn’t foreign and the idea of renewable energy as well.

Meet a team of Chinese students that has managed to modify E. coli, Shewanella and B. subtilis bacteria to create a microbial fuel cell. When the bacteria is fed sugar, the fuel cell can generate about 80 hours of electrical output. It is more stable than wind and solar energy. It is also the first microbial fuel cell that has mixed various kinds of microbes.

The team belongs to Tianjin University and team adviser, Liu Yue said, “We hope to make the MFC much smaller with longer electrical output and a larger quantity of electricity, so that it can be one of the new energies of the future just like the lithium batteries that we normally use in our life.” The project has also been awarded the top genetic engineering prize in September 2015.